The Dovekeepers is Alice Hoffman's most ambitious and mesmerizing novel, a tour de force of imagination and research, set in ancient Israel. In 70 C.E., nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on Masada, a mountain in the Judean desert. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic and iconic event, Hoffman's novel is a spellbinding tale of four extraordinarily bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom has come to Masada by a different pat... read more

From one of Britain's most important writers, An Honourable Man is set in the tumultuous world of late Victorian England. Beginning in the Sudan and London of 1884, this extraordinary new novel is played out against the shambolic end of the Empire. Slovo draws on the lives of two real men: Charles Gordon, an heroic, hubristic, career army man whose refusal to obey orders helped bring down the Gladstone government, and W T Stead, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, the father of tabloid journalism. Their story is intercuts with the tal... read more

Seventy-year-old Percy Darling is settling happily into retirement: reading novels, watching old movies, and swimming naked in his pond. But his routines are disrupted when he is persuaded to let a locally beloved preschool take over his barn. As Percy sees his rural refuge overrun by children, parents, and teachers, he must reexamine the solitary life he has made in the three decades since the sudden death of his wife. With equal parts affection and humor, Julia Glass spins a captivating tale about a man who can no longer remain a... read more

When Charles Saint-Beuve, a French literary journalist met Victor Hugo, an ambitious young writer who intended to become famous, he was swept into a world of grand emotions, a world where words can become swords. But it is not Victor he is really attracted to - it is his wife Adele. Soon the two lovers are on the edge of a great scandal and a wounded Victor must exact his price for betrayal, a price that will change the lives of so many, including his own children. As Saint-Beuve - a man like no other man - struggles to hold on to ... read more

A gorgeously written, The English Patient-style novel about the real-life romance between the war photographers Robert Capa and Gerda Taro during the Spanish Civil War.
Love, war and photography marked their lives. They were young, anti-Fascist, good-looking, and nonconformist. They had everything in life, and they put everything at risk. They created their own legend and remained faithful to it until the very end! A young German woman named Gerta Pohorylle and a young Hungarian man named Endre Friedmann meet in Paris in 193... read more

A spellbinding and wise coming-of-age story from Canadian Frances Greenslade, Shelter draws readers into the precarious world of two young sisters in search of their mother, and brings to life a breathtaking BC landscape.Maggie is a born worrier who really believes that trouble comes in threes and that threats to her family's cozy but fragile life in Duchess Creek are never far. For reasons she doesn't understand, her father favours her over her carefree older sister, Jenny, and takes her on outings to the bush where he shows ... read more

Ragnarok is the story of the end of the world. It is a tale of the destruction of life on this planet and the end of the gods themselves. What more relevant myth could any modern writer find? As the bombs rain down in the Battle of Britain, one young girl is evacuated to the countryside. She is struggling to make sense of her new wartime life. Then she is given a copy of Asgard and the Gods - a book of ancient Norse myths - and her inner and outer worlds are transformed. How could this child know that fifty years on many of the bir... read more

This is a new part of an old story: 1930s Berlin, the threat of imprisonment and the powerful desire to make something beautiful despite the horror. Chip told us not to go out. Said, don't you boys tempt the devil. But it's been one brawl of a night, I tell you. The aftermath of the fall of Paris, 1940. Hieronymous Falk, a rising star on the cabaret scene, was arrested in a cafe and never heard from again. He was twenty years old. He was a German citizen. And he was black. Fifty years later, Sid, Hiero's bandmate and the only witne... read more

In 1985 Jeanette Winterson's first novel, "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit", was published. It tells the story of a young girl adopted by Pentecostal parents. The girl is supposed to grow up and be a missionary. Instead she falls in love with a woman. Disaster. Written when Jeanette was only twenty-five, her novel went on to win the Whitbread First Novel award, become an international bestseller and inspire an award-winning BBC television adaptation. "Oranges" was semi-autobiographical. Mrs Winterson, a thwarted giantess, loomed ove... read more

What do you do when your outspoken, passionate and quick-witted mother starts fading into a forgetful, fearful woman? In this powerful graphic memoir, Sarah Leavitt reveals how Alzheimer's disease transformed her mother Midge - and her family - forever. In spare black and white drawings and clear, candid prose, Sarah shares her family's journey through a harrowing range of emotions - shock, denial, hope, anger, frustration - all the while learning to cope, and managing to find moments of happiness. Midge, a Harvard-educated intelle... read more

Autobiography of the world-famous, and much-loved, actress. Best known for her role as Annie Hall in Woody Allen's film of the same name, for which she won an Academy Award for Best Actress, Keaton has had a fascinating and highly successful career, with roles in 'The Godfather', 'Reds', 'Father of the Bride', 'Something's Gotta Give' and many more. Personally Keaton has had relationships with Woody Allen, Warren Beatty, and Al Pacino -- all of whom she remains in touch with today and who she will speak about in the book. Diane K... read more

Everyone loves Ellen! She is a beloved television icon and entertainment pioneer. Her distinctive comic voice has resonated with audiences from her first stand-up comedy appearances through her work today on television, film and in the literary world. DeGeneres' hit syndicated talk show, THE ELLEN DEGENERES show, is now in its eighth season and has earned a total of 29 Daytime Emmy awards. Additionally, DeGeneres has won 11 People's Choice Awards for Favorite Daytime Talk Show Host, Favorite Funny Female Star and Favorite Talk Show... read more

Justine Picardie has spent the last decade puzzling over the truth about Coco Chanel, attempting to peel away the accretions of romance and lies. In this beautifully illustrated, impeccably written full-scale biography we finally discover the history of the incredible woman who created the way we look now.
Coco Chanel was an extraordinary inventor - she conjured up the little black dress, bobbed hair, trousers for women, contemporary chic, best-selling perfumes, and the most successful fashion brand of all time - but s... read more

Coco Chanel, high priestess of couture, created the look of the chic modern woman. Chanel believed in simplicity: she freed women from their corsets and inspired them to crop their hair; and created elegant trousers, trench coats and jersey sweaters. By the 1920s, Chanel employed more than two thousand people in her workrooms, and had amassed a personal fortune. But at the start of the Second World War, Chanel closed down her couture house and went to live at the Ritz, on Place Vend“me. After the war she lived in Switzerland... read more

By the end of the First World War, Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel had revolutionised women's dress. But dress was the most visible aspect of more profound changes she helped to bring about. During the course of her extraordinary and unconventional journey - from abject poverty to a new kind of glamour - "Chanel" would help forge the very idea of modern woman. Unearthing an astonishing life, this remarkable biography shows how the most influential designer of her century became synonymous with a rebellious and progressive style. Her numero... read more

Lucrezia Borgia - an infamous murderess or simply the victim of bad press? Lucrezia Borgia's name has echoed through history as a byword for evil - a poisoner who committed incest with her natural father, Pope Alexander VI, and with her brother, Cesare Borgia. Long considered the most ruthless of Italian Renaissance noblewomen, her tarnished reputation has prevailed long since her own lifetime. In this definitive biography, a work of huge scholarship and erudition, Sarah Bradford gives a fascinating account of Lucrezia's life in al... read more

Defy a dictator. Unite your people. End a war. As a young woman, Leymah Gbowee was broken by the Liberian civil war, a brutal conflict that tore apart her life and claimed the lives of countless relatives and friends. Years of fighting destroyed her country - and shattered Gbowee's girlhood hopes and dreams. As a young mother trapped in a nightmare of domestic abuse, she found the courage to turn her bitterness into action, propelled by her realisation that it is womwho suffer most during conflicts - and that the power of women wor... read more

On an icy morning in Paris in January 1943, 230 French women resisters were rounded up from the Gestapo detention camps and sent on a train to Auschwitz — the only train, in the four years of German occupation, to take women of the resistance to a death camp. The youngest was a schoolgirl of 15, the eldest a farmer’s wife of 68; there were among them teachers, biochemists, sales girls, secretaries, housewives and university lecturers.
Caroline Moorehead’s remarkable new book is the story of these women... read more

In the 1800s, Britain was making a mint selling Indian opium to China. In return, they were buying tea, silks and ceramics. When eventually China decided that the drug trade was ruining her people, the British declared war, declaring China 'protectionist', 'backwards-looking' and 'superstitious'. For two years Britain pummelled China's east coast, forcing her to sign a humiliating treaty allowing Britain full trading access. A weakened China was at the mercy of the West until the Communist triumph of 1949. This is the popular belie... read more